Why Grocery Shopping with Children is Worse than Water Torture

By Anastacia Mott Austin

While the nomination of potential U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey gets hung up on questions over the use of waterboarding as a form of torture, I have a more urgent question for him:

How does he feel about taking young children to the store? Because it seems to me that if he is in favor of this form of torture, he should be made to take my three kids grocery shopping.

I know that those of you without children think that the horrid, screaming monsters you see in the checkout line are exceptionally deviant forms of humanity...and then there's the kids.

But those children are not sociopaths in training. They were not like that before they got to the store. (No they weren't...No they weren't. Nuh-uh!)

For example, my children are your average fairly normal, generally decent kids. They are relatively well-behaved, sometimes helpful, for the most part cool people. Until we go to the store. From the moment we pull into the parking lot a twitchy transformation takes place and they become "those other" children, the ones you see every day at grocery stores.

Here's how the typical shopping excursion used to happen with my kids:

Me: "I need eggs. We need to stop at the grocery store."

My kids: "Whine complain stall bicker hit each other whine she's-looking-at-me, all the other mothers don't make their kids go to the store whine some more."

We pull up to the store and slide open the door of the van. A week's worth of little empty plastic water bottles fall out onto the sidewalk and bounce directly under the van where I can't get them, along with last month's field trip permission slip and somebody's dirty gray sock, an apple core and a spoon. The kids don't even glance at the stuff, and run up to the store without sliding the car door shut.

Me: "Wait! Someone needs to shut the door, and what are the rules of the grocery store?"

My kids (in robotic unison): "Listen to Mommy hold Mommy's hand don't touch anything stick by Mommy." They still don't shut the door to the van.

Kid 1: "Can I go in the cart?"

Kids 2 and 3: "No fair! You went last time (stop talking at the same time as me!)!"

Me: "No one is going in the cart."

We walk into the store. Kid 1 immediately disappears.

Me: "Does anyone need to go to the bathroom before we get started?"

Kid 2: "Can I go in the cart?"

Me: "I said no."

Kid 2: "No, you said he couldn't go in the cart."

Me: "Nobody is going in the cart."

We proceed to the produce section.

Kid 1, materializing next to the samples of cantaloupe: "Can we have a sample?"

Kid 3: "No, it's not or-gan-ic."

Kid 1: "I wasn't asking you."

Kid 3: "Mo-o-o-o-m! She looked at me mean!"

(General "did not did too did not did too did so did not did TOO!")

Older woman looking from the lettuce to my children putting used toothpicks back into the clean toothpick cup: "You sure have your hands full."

Me: "Yep."

Kid 1 disappears again.

I used to think it was harder going shopping when my kids were smaller, but I can't remember why, because then they were contained in the front seat of the cart or in the sling; now they just run around everywhere.

Also, when your kids are older nobody stops you to look fondly at your sweet babe and say, "Oh, I remember when mine were this age." Apparently no one has a nostalgic fondness for the times when their children had snot on their faces from a runny nose but squealed like a stuck pig when even asked to wipe it. Fun times.

Kid 2 wipes her nose on the back of her hand and reaches for a raspberry from a pile of sample berries, touching every one of them before choosing the best one, then bumping the back of the plastic tray, sending tray, berries, and a pile of those greens they set things on to the floor where they scatter. Berries bounce everywhere. I think to myself, at least nobody else will get a berry my kid just touched with her snotty hand, and start picking up raspberries. Nobody helps me.

Kid 3, picking up a squished berry her sister has just stepped on and eating it: "Yum."

Kid 2: Gross! Mo-o-o-o-om! She ate a raspberry off the floor!"

(Variation on "did not did too did so did so not did TOO!")

A different older lady is now looking at me with that look the kid-less people give people like me at the grocery store. You do it too, I know you do. (Yes, you do!)

I could give you the play-by-play about the rest of the trip, how Kid 3 actually licked a package of sushi and put it back before I could see which one it was, how the fish guy took three hundred years to carefully wrap my tilapia in brown paper as if he were working the gift wrap counter at Macy's while Kid 2 ate 50 samples of crab cakes and then put the dirty toothpick back into the clean toothpick container. I could tell you about the 106 times they asked me, "Can we have...." And I said "No," "I said no," and "because I said so."

I could tell you about how once they figured out I was not going to buy them popsicles they decided it was a lost cause anyway (and that I wouldn't yell at them or put them into a time out in front of the Ben and Jerry's case) and decided to run screaming in separate directions, knowing I couldn't catch them all at once and that the little brother was probably going to be the first one caught anyway.

We finally got to the checkout counter, where Kid 1 re-materialized in time to touch all the candy bars in the counter display. I started unloading my cart onto the conveyor belt.

Kid 2: "I have to go to the bathroom now."

Me: "Can it wait?"

Kid 2: "No, I'm going to pee my pants."

Me: "Well I'm sure there's an extra pair of pants in the car somewhere."

Kid 2 decides she actually can hold it.

Kid 1, mournfully: "I sneezed and no-one said 'bless you.'"

Me: "Bless you."

Kid 1: "It's too late now."

Kid 3: " Can I have...?"

Me: "No."

Kid 3: "You don't even know what I was going to ask."

Me: "Doesn't matter."

Kid 3, loudly: "No fair!!"

Older lady behind us in line: "You sure have your hands full."

Me: "Mm-hmm."

While I pay the cashier, the kids run around and touch things. Kid 1 comes back and tells the cashier, "We had worms."

Finally done, with groceries in bags, we leave the store. I realize when we get to the car that I've forgotten to get eggs.

Kid 3: "Can I go in the cart?"

That's pretty much it. There are variations of course, mostly on what items they touch, which one of them has the runny nose, what interesting personal information they reveal to the cashier, and who has to go to the bathroom.

As a parent, you may have had similar shopping trips. If you haven't, then you should be writing this article instead of me. Or putting together a craft project involving creating a perfect miniature California mission out of popsicle sticks or something, because you have it more together than I do.

Despite the preceding story, I have learned some tricks over time to help reduce the chaos of the family grocery trip, so that you won't have to endure the torture scenarios we used to go through. Here are the best ones:

1.For God's sake, don't bring your kids to the store with you! Seriously, unless it's completely unavoidable, have your spouse do the shopping instead, or arrange to have him/her watch the kids for an hour or two while you run errands. You can quietly roam the aisles in peace, smiling at the other customers, or watch that other mother with her uncontrollable offspring and think, "Wow, good thing my own kids are perfect. She should take a parenting class." If you're super-fast about it, you can finish the shopping, spring for a quick mani-pedi and then complain to your spouse about traffic when you get home.

2.If option 1 just isn't possible (and it sometimes isn't for any of us), try some torture-proof kid control techniques, like:

3.Bribe them. Oh come on, don't roll your eyes like that, it works. Bribery, when used sparingly, is a surprisingly effective parenting tool. Tell the kids they can pick ONE thing, a treat or a small item, that they will receive after the shopping trip if they have been well-behaved and followed the rules. The key here is following through. If they aren't good, they don't get the treat, period. And you have to be willing to deal with the fallout if they aren't, which could include a full-on frothing tantrum in the cereal aisle. If you can deal with it, this is an effective tip.

4.Try to not visit the store during peak hours, when everyone in your town is there trying to get something together for dinner. Too many people who are too tired and cranky to be patient with kids. Too many escape possibilities also, and a higher likelihood that the person behind you in line isn't going to want to hear about your child's imaginary friend Mr. Bobo while her frozen hamburger melts.

5.Try not to go when your children are especially tired or cranky themselves, i.e. right after school or during their regular nap time. They're people too, and there are times when they just can't deal with the whole thing either.

6.Its best to give the entire family some advance notice so you can all be prepared for the experience. If Mom has advance notice, you may have more tricks up your sleeve and more patience than if you try to fit it in on the way home from soccer practice or basket-weaving class.

7.If your children are a little older, you can give them tasks to help you. It makes them feel more responsible and they'll be less likely to want to sabotage the entire scene if they're part of it. They can help find certain items, or be responsible for remembering to get eggs, for example.

8.Be clear about what you expect from your children, and equally clear about what will happen if they don't meet those expectations. My children are well-versed in the "stick by Mommy hold Mommy's hand don't touch anything listen to Mommy shut the van door." If they don't follow these rules, there should be consequences, i.e. no getting treats, or not being able to watch their movie when they get home. If you have more than one child, you can use this to your advantage by praising the one child who is being good (if that actually happens), and making sure that child gets positive reinforcement. Kids crave approval from their parents, and if they don't think they can get it, they'll give up and try to get your attention in other ways. Go over the rules before you go into the store. If you're not comfortable doling out consequences in the public eye (and who wants to sit on the floor outside Ben and Jerry's case saying, "we will sit here until you are calm"), then make it clear that there will be consequences to pay once you are in the car or at home.

9.This sounds a little counterintuitive, but try to enjoy the experience. Take a deep breath before going into the store, and make it a game. "Let's see who can stick right by me the longest!" or "How many apples can you count without touching any of them?" You have to be in the right mind-set to accomplish this, and between you and me, it's usually some other mom who can do it. I'm often more of a mind to think, "Let's get real." But that's just me. And finally, the most important and effective tool for shopping with kids:

10.See 1.